PM Modi defends government, record on jobs, growth
PM Modi says GDP expansion delivered employment; India isolated Pak globally
India responded with an air strike on a Jaish terror camp in Pakistan’s Balakot on February 26.
“Pulwama has convinced the world that what India says is right. Because of that, the entire world supported us when the air strikes were conducted. There was a time when only Russia was with us on the international stage, while the rest of the world was with Pakistan. After five years, only China is with Pakistan and the rest of the world is with India,” Modi said.
Both India and the world, the Prime Minister added, know that “Modi and India have a zero-tolerance policy on terror.:”
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As prepared as he is to take the initiative and extend the hand of friendship – Modi referred to his invitation to then Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif for his swearing-in ceremony in May 2014, or an impromptu stopover in Pakistan to wish Sharif on his birthday – he is “also prepared to tackle any hostility”, the PM said.
Several analysts and opinion polls have predicted that while the BJP looks set to form the next government after the summer’s Lok Sabha polls, it will probably do so with a slightly fewer numbers than it had in 2014. Modi doesn’t agree.
“The way people are joining the BJP, from all over, be it Odisha or West Bengal, the wave is very much visible,” he said. “Our government will indeed be formed. It is going to be a full majority government. The BJP will get more numbers than earlier”.
None of the other parties have a better pitch, he explained.
Referring to the Congress’s election manifesto, which has pledged Rs.72,000 per year to the poorest 20% of India’s population in minimum income, Modi said many of the promises it contains had been made before.
The Congress has in the past promised direct income payments and a high minimum support price for the produce of farmers, but the party forgot about them. Then it promised electricity for every household; that too was forgotten. In 2009, it promised broadband connectivity in every village and now, in 2019, it is repeating the same promise, he said, wondering what it had done for the poor since independence.